New Year’s Fireworks

Welcome to 2010! Coming from Massachusetts, land of strict laws against buying fireworks (among other things), I was shocked my first New Year’s in Rome when the entire night was marked by people setting off firecrackers. Every year it seems like something bad happens because of it, last year a guy in Naples died after being hit by a firecracker, but this year no deaths were reported, just some accidents. Ok sorry, perhaps that’s a bit morbid to start off the post with! I took this shot out the window of my new apartment which shows just some of the fireworks that went off during the night. Even though it was a bit rainy, that didn’t stop people from celebrating.

Ha! The one New Year I was in Rome, it was like the city got firebombed. The fireworks were spectacular from an apartment window way above and southwest of the downtown area… but the next day, there were so many reports of kids getting their hands blown off, people dying in house fires, etc. Trash cans were burned out all down the streets. Walls of apartment and commercial buildings were scorched. Ashy garbage tumbled over the empty cobblestones while everyone stayed inside with hangovers…